Sledgehammer Writing Contest

Mini Sledgehammer: April 2011

Posted on April 12, 2011 by writer

Today’s a day to cut to the chase, so here are your prompts:

Character: Maintenance worker
Action: Getting a haircut
Setting: An RV park
Prop: A book review

The judges debated for quite a while on the winner this month, and they finally settled on Wendy Grant’s story, “Paul Bunyan’s Leather Jacket.” Congratulations, Wendy!

***

Paul Bunyan’s Leather Jacket

by Wendy Grant

MTV used to have a show called “Road Rules.” A handful of twenty-somethings traveled around in an RV, stopping occasionally to see a historic site, do something ridiculous like bungee jump from a hot-air balloon, make out with the local townsfolk, call their semi-significant others back home to cry and apologize for said dirty deed, and stab one another in the back. I think they won a Kia and five grand if they survived the odyssey. All of the Road Rulers, as they were called, were young, fit, and impossibly good-looking. It really irritated my buddy Martin.

Martin thought that a bunch of us should travel around in an RV, too—we the not young, the never fit, the potentially fairly good-looking-after-six-martinis. We could go to historic sites, contribute to the community in some way that didn’t involve making out with the local townsfolk, and film it all.

“Film it for what? For who?” asked our friend Jenn.

“The History Channel?” I cracked.

“For fun,” said Martin.

“Instead of ‘Road Rules,’ we can call it ‘Old Fools,’” Jenn said.

Given that we are twice as old as twenty-somethings, we couldn’t just take off for three months like those Road Rulers. We settled on three days in an RV that Martin nicknamed Petunia, and we set off for the Paul Bunyan RV Park. Despite Petunia’s girth, we made it to the RV Park without incident in just under 18 hours.

I was antsy after being the RV for so long—and, frankly, I was probably feeling a bit cocky after decimating Jenn in Uno, 27 games straight. I leaped out of the RV, and I could see it: the enormous statue of Paul Bunyan. Anti-flannel graffiti artists had spray-painted his red and black shirt into a black leather jacket. Our community task would be to remove the graffiti and restore Paul Bunyan’s faux flannel. We’d start tomorrow.

“If I’m going to be on camera, I need a haircut,” Martin said. He barely has any hair, but he’s fastidious about what little he does have.

“That’ll take three minutes,” said Jenn. “Then what are we going to do?”

Three minutes later, Jenn, Martin, Very Quiet Victor, and I set off in search of liquid refreshment. We stopped when we saw the first neon beer sign. The locals sized us up, decided we were harmless, and actively ignored us. The bartender told us it was Ladies’ Night—two-for-one apple martinis—and we started a tab. For the purposes of discounted alcohol, Martin and Very Quiet Victor became honorary ladies.

Three rounds later, which was six drinks each later, thanks to the twofers, we were deeply, deeply drunk.

“Victooorrrrr,” I slurred, “why are you so Very Quiet?”

“I’m a maintenance worker. The equipment never talks to me. I don’t talk to it.”

“Ohhh. Let’s make out.”

Jenn began filming us immediately and commented, “If you had big fake boobs, we could probably sell this show to Bravo.”

Victor and I ignored her, and, according to video evidence, I lost my top.

Martin stared sadly at his drink. “I think I’m going to be too hung over to do charitable service tomorrow.”

Jenn swung the camera his way. “I read a review about that book, Volunteering in the New Millennium. It said that the desire to volunteer is more important than actual action.”

“Really?”

“No. But this was a good idea.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Let’s make out.”

***

Wendy M. Grant is a writer and editor. She’s written innumerable advertisements, newsletters, and brochures, and she co-authored a book on the history of Naval Air Station Miramar. When she’s not writing and editing for the clients of her company, W-inkling, she works on her screenplay, which she plans to sell this year.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, MTV, Paul Bunyan, prizes, Road Rules, Wendy Grant, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer: March 2011

Posted on March 8, 2011 by writer

What better way to celebrate International Women’s Day and Mardi Gras on the same day than to head to a wine and cheese shop to compete in a women-run writing contest?

This month’s writing prompts are:

Character: Women’s activist
Action: Sneaking
Setting: A church
Prop: Mardi Gras beads

With these prompts, tonight’s story topics ranged from an illicit affair to an angel with an agenda. Congratulations to Blythe Ayne for writing the winning story. Stay tuned to read it!

***

Angels to Nirvana

by Blythe Ayne

I was crawling around on the church floor after my Mardi Gras beads, which had mysteriously jumped their string and flown every which way in a wild jumble.

At that moment, in the middle of the rowdy carnival celebration on the street, a bunch of women’s activists came bursting through the door of the church. Don’t ask me how I figured that’s what they were, they just had an air of self assurance and determination to change the world for better.

The first one came up to me as I squatted under a pew, gathering my beads. She stepped on one of them. It went “crunch!” under her sturdy shoe.

“What are you doing, sneaking around on the floor of the church?” she asked.

“I…” I gestured at the beads, green and silver and orange all around her… “My string of beads broke, and I’m….”

“Never mind.” She waved to her compatriots, three other very sure-of- themselves looking women. They formed a crescent moon curve around her. Looking up at them, it was like a visitation. The street lights came through the stained glass windows making a halo around them. I felt like I was looking up at guardian angels. Gabriel, at least, for sure.

“This young man,” she continued, “has broken his string of Mardi Gras beads. Help him pick them up.”

The three women fell to their knees and scrambled around for the beads, under the pews, in the aisles… everywhere.

“How did you come to be in this church?” one of the women asked me. “Oh look, here’s seven beads, all together.”

“I don’t know. I was in the street, celebrating…” I looked into her eyes. They were that kind of hazel composed of green and brown and almost red segments. I stopped talking.

“Go on,” she said.

I… you… your eyes…..”

“I know, kind of strange, aren’t they?”

“But I’ve seen you… Do you know me?”

She shrugged, but looked away.

“Do you know me?” I asked again.

“Here’s another bead.” she moved across the aisle on all fours, but somehow so gracefully, almost floating, as if it was a well-practiced dance move.

I scrambled after her. Clearly less graceful. “You know me, don’t you?”

As she picked up another bead I reached out to stay her hand. A flash of light passed between her hand and mine.

“What the?….” I sat back on my haunches, stunned.

The first woman came up to us, standing over us, disapproving.

“Just gather the beads!” she ordered.

The hazel-eyed woman moved away from me, picked up another bead, but didn’t hand it to me.

“Give me the bead,” I said. She cautiously reached out her hand, her long fingers stretched impossibly toward me, she dared to look me in the eye. The flash of light passed between us again.

“I know!” I fairly shouted. Then quietly I said, “I know where I’ve seen you. In my dreams. In my dreams,” I repeated. “Have you seen me? Do you know me?”

She looked over my shoulder.

“Yes,” she whispered, “yes, I know you. But just leave me in your dreams. You don’t want to bring me out into your real world.”

“What do you mean? You are in my real world.”

A saxophone player belted out a song in the street, a song I’ve never heard but felt I knew so well.

Just gather the beads,” she said. When you have 108, you’ll arrive.”

“What are you saying?”

“Count the beads–108–you’ll arrive in nirvana.”

I counted the beads, wanting only to look one more time into those strange, amazing eyes.

I counted 107 beads, then looked up, discovering that I sat on the sidewalk, under the saxophone player. He was about seven feet tall, his music came from far away.

“Hey…” I asked him, “Hey, did you see a hazel-eyed woman? An amazing hazel-eyed woman?”

He looked down at me and again, I felt like the guardian angel in the church window had come alive. He didn’t stop playing, but he nodded.

Yes, he’d seen her.

The faint lace of dawn crept up the sky behind the saxophone player, pink and pale orange. I looked down at my hands filled with Mardi Gras beads, longing to see the hazel-eyed angel again. But I knew I never would.

She had kept that one single bead to nirvana.

***

Blythe Ayne, Ph.D., lives on ten acres of forest on the north side of the Columbia River near Portland, Oregon. She’s is an author, artist, and university instructor of writing and speech. Her written work has appeared in over one hundred publications. This is her second Sledgehammer appearance.

Along with her writing, her greatest commitment is to the stewardship and preservation of her forest, where wonderful and diverse flora and fauna thrive.

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2011 Dates Announced

Posted on February 9, 2011 by writer

Mark your calendars now for the 2011 Sledgehammer 36-Hour Writing Contest! We’ll take to Portland’s streets for our scavenger hunt on Saturday, September 17, 2011, and stories will be due by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, September 18. Registration will open in August.

Let’s hear it from our past participants: Why do you Sledgehammer? For the adrenaline? To write? For the teamwork? Something else?

Filed under: 2011 Sledgehammer | Tagged: 2011, Portland, prizes, Scavenger Hunt, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer: February 2011

Posted on February 8, 2011 by writer

Can you believe it’s February already? The diamond companies certainly won’t let us forget. Why don’t we throw them a bone and write something loosely wedding based? Be romantic or cynical, literal or digital, but make it literary and use all the prompts!

Prompts:
character: a wedding planner
action: putting on the oxygen mask
setting: on an airplane
phrase: “I’m allergic.”

Only writers present can compete, but if you’re writing from home for fun, be sure to post your story to your own blog or website and then put a link in a comment below.

Thanks for writing!

Congratulations to Man Price, who says of his prize package, “I love all my new toys!”

***

"Self-Portrait"

What Money Can’t Buy

by Manchester Barry Price

Being rich is a mixed bag. I know you’re all thinking, “Yeah, right!” and I understand how you feel. The problem with being rich is that you have the money to do, basically, whatever you want, so there is this pressure to actually do it. More specifically, you’re often pressured to do what everyone else says you want.

After I proposed, my bride to be, Sandy, picked New Zealand for our wedding and honeymoon. I live in Utah for good reason: it’s mostly flat, there are few bodies of water, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, earthquakes are rare and you can go anywhere you want in your very own car. “Sandy! What are you thinking? I can’t go to New Zealand. Are you crazy?” Sandy was not about to give me any slack. She had thought this out; she had a plan. Tough Love was to be her wedding theme. “Why can’t you babe?” she cooed, “It’s just a plane.” “Because I’m allergic!” I yelled.

“Allergic to what?”

“To everything!”

Cue the wedding planner and the life coach and the couples councilor and the hypnotist. Cue the mock airplane. Throwing money at the problem, Qantas delivered a shiny 747 flight trainer and every day for a month, our whole crew gathered. We trained and trained and trained.

Just climbing the ladder and going through that small door had me freaked out. “Keep coming, babe,” said Sandy. “You can do it,” cried the rest of the team. “Remember the visualization,” said Sandy, “Visualize a huge desert with nothing in it,” she said, because all the typical visualization scenes made me even more anxious; oceans and waves and hawks flying and just floating on the water. So I visualized nothing but empty desert and made my way down the isle. “Row, three! Row nine! Row eighteen,” they all cried, “You’re almost there!”

By row twenty-two I was on my hands and knees. I was sweating, cursing, mumbling to myself, whining; and they were all happily and lovingly screaming at me to “Go, go, go; you can do it!” I made it to row twenty-six, way the hell back. It was like visiting all the levels of hell. I pulled myself up into the chair and began hyperventilating. The oxygen masks dropped down. I had the clarity, the urgent sense of survival to remember the safety video we had gone over sixty times. I got the string around my neck, the mask on my face and I looked to the seat beside me, ready to put a mask on the child who was always there in the video, but of course the seat was empty.

And then finally, my mask began to fill, and I had the first sense that I just might live. I didn’t calm down right away, but it was better. The wedding planner was rubbing my shoulders. The hypnotist was mouthing the words, “Deserted desert… flat… alone… safe…” Sandy was in the row ahead of me, her knees on the seat and leaning back to face me. Her eyes were like all the pictures you’ve ever seen of God looking down and saying, “I am love. You can do it. You may enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

They told me later that they had spiked the oxygen supply in the customized flight trainer with laughing gas. I’m here to tell you; friends, that stuff works. “Movie,” I’d drooled, “Where’s my cocktail and peanuts? Get this baby up in the air and lets get cranking for New Zealand.”

My first training flight was a smashing success. Literally, as it turned out. Descending the ladder, still unbelievably high, I fell fourteen feet onto the tarmac and fractured ribs, broke bones, scraped, bruised, sprained; you name it. We spent our honeymoon, four glorious weeks, at a secluded vacation spot in the high desert. It was wheelchair equipped.

There’s talk of California for our first anniversary. We can drive there in our very own car.

***

Man Price eagerly awaits the March issue of The Sun; the first time his work will appear in print. He loaded Kerouac’s On the Road to his iPod in January. He just keeps listening, 34 days and counting. Man’s blog can be found at http://manprice.blogspot.com/

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese, free, Indigo Editing, Manchester Barry Price, Portland, prizes, Sledgehammer, writing contest | 2 Comments »

Mini Sledgehammer: January 2011

Posted on January 11, 2011 by writer

It’s a cold, blustery night here at January’s Mini Sledgehammer, but the shop is warm and the wine makes us warmer, so we’re still writing away. Join us from home!

Prompts:
character: a pet (remember, this does not have to be your main character)
action: doing web research
setting: under a dripping ceiling
phrase: song lyrics (from a real song, recognizable by anyone)

Only writers present can compete, but if you’re writing from home for fun, be sure to post your story to your own blog or website and then put a link in a comment below.

Thanks for writing!

Congratulations to Elissa Nelson, our first-ever writer to win two MiniSledgehammers!

***

“Untitled”
by Elissa Nelson

The dog was lying under her computer annoyed as usual that Cynthia was on the computer instead of curled up with Fluffy. Peter was on the couch watching TV, and Samantha was in her parents’ room reading on their bed, hiding out from the dripping ceiling in Samantha’s own room, but Fluffy still wanted to be where Cynthia was, even if Cynthia was the only one occupied in an activity that prohibited cuddling.

But she had no choice. It was 9:45 on a Tuesday night, she’d promised her students their presentation grades by Wednesday, and she was still verifying that everyone had used an actual song. In the past, students had been known to make up a song, confident that Cynthia was too old and too uncool to know that 2Pac did not sing—rap, whatever—anything called “Yo Auntie Wasn’t a Black Panther.” So now Cynthia verified all the songs she didn’t personally recognize. This year, that eliminated Yoko’s Joni Mitchell presentation on “California” and Vicki’s Bangles presentation on “Manic Monday,” which included a photo of a dashing young Rudolph Valentino. She had to look up pretty much everyone else. It didn’t help that her own daughter listened exclusively to what she called “emo” music in which the singers felt sorry for themselves and went on about their pathetic lives. Apparently Samantha felt sorry for herself and her pathetic life, but this was not something she discussed with her mother, it was just something Cynthia had inferred, inference being a major skill she taught in ninth grade English and one that she relied on heavily both as a teacher and as a mother. Not to mention as a wife and a daughter. And as a friend. Inference was important. Cynthia couldn’t believe it wasn’t a skill that had been taught when she herself was in middle school. She’d just picked it up along the way. A drunkard of a father was helpful in that regard, if perhaps only in that regard.

Tonight she had looked up and verified lyrics by Sam Cooke’s gospel band The Soul Stirrers (who knew?), a song that she probably would have known if she’d gone to church with her mother and/or paid attention to any of the music her mother had listened to when Cynthia herself was growing up. But until her father took her bedroom door off its hinges, Cynthia avoided the gospel music pervading the house by slamming said door at every opportunity. When he took it off its hinges, saying—slurring—that he was tired of her slamming it all the damn time, and damn it she was part of this family too, why didn’t she come out of that damn room once in a while and spend some time with her parents, she just moved down to the finished basement that no one spent any time in. Granted, the edges of the wall-to-wall carpet were always wet—it was rather a leaky basement—and it was very cold in wintertime, but she figured it was worth it. The basement door stayed closed, and even when it was open, she would’ve heard her mom or dad on the stairs before they could see her. Not that she was doing anything, but maybe it was more about other kinds of preparation than, say, extinguishing the cigarette. That house reeked anyway, and her mother smoked so much that she probably wouldn’t have even noticed if Cynthia had a cigarette. She certainly couldn’t have said anything about it. Not that her mother minded much about hypocrisy, but yeah. Regardless, it never came to pass. It was never an issue.

So she’d looked up “Farther Along.” Yep, a real song. Not that Sally Simmons would lie, anyway. Interestingly, Elvis had also sung it, and so had Johnny Cash, along with about a thousand other people.

That was the problem. Just looking up the songs and verifying their existence wouldn’t take her so long. But then there was You Tube and all the background information. 2Pac didn’t have a song called “Yo Auntie Wasn’t a Black Panther,” but Rashid really did his homework for the assignment, except for making up the song. If he would’ve talked to her ahead of time, she would’ve excused him from the song assignment and let him research Assata Shakur (Tupac’s mother’s sister!) and the Panthers as an alternate assignment, but when he made up a song, what was she supposed to do?

She also looked up a lot of top 40 hits, some heavy metal, too many contemporary Christian rock songs, and some “emo” music that Samantha probably could have loaned her—although she had tried talking with Samantha about this assignment last year, thinking maybe they could at least have a conversation about it, if not bond—and Samantha had rolled her eyes so many times that Cynthia gave up. She had eyes rolled at her enough at school, and at home there was no Principal Woodman to send her daughter to. There wasn’t even a Mrs. Sheehan—and Cynthia had her doubts about some of Mrs. Sheehan’s methods, but there was no question that some of the students really loved her—perhaps loved her too much—and she had probably stopped a few from attempting suicide or running away from home. Who was Cynthia to dismiss her efforts? All Cynthia could do was try to make the difference she could make, and support or at least not interfere with others’ efforts to do the same.

She looked up “A Taste of Honey” and then was very embarrassed to see that of course she knew that one, it had been on that early Beatles hits record that her sister had owned. She’d heard it thousands of times. But Sari Marshall did her presentation on a version recorded in the oughts by some terrible jazz singer, and she didn’t mention the fact that it had been released by the Beatles. Not that that would mean something to every child in high school now, but—sometimes Cynthia couldn’t believe what a world she lived in. How many worlds they all lived in, neatly or messily lined up next to each other. She stopped reading about that terrible song, “If You Wanna Be Happy” (which of course she knew this was a song, did she really need to look it up?!) and leaned down to pet poor Fluffy. Then she looked up a couple more, shut down her computer, and went to watch TV with her husband, Fluffy curled up between them and Samantha now sullen in her dripping bedroom, “emo” music coming from under her door.

***

Elissa Nelson is a high school English teacher and a writer who is really close to being finished with her first novel.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese, Elissa Nelson, free, Indigo Editing & Publications, prizes, writing contest | 1 Comment »

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